


Conviction

by noveltea



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-17
Updated: 2010-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-10 15:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noveltea/pseuds/noveltea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Above all else, Teyla is the leader of her people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conviction

In her experience, one could learn to cope with the constant loss of loved ones and friends, but one could never fully recover from it.

All her life Teyla had known loss. Friends, family members; none were safe from the Wraith and the hard times that her people endured. She had learned to grieve before she had learnt how to walk, and such was the way that life would continue to play out, no matter how fervently she wished that the deaths of her friends, her family, would cease and that the Wraith would disappear and become nothing more than legend.

Sometimes even she wondered how she could believe such a fantasy.

The burden of a leader had been passed on to her by her father. He had been considered one of the great leaders of her people, and the mantle sometimes wore heavy on her shoulders. She had learnt that showing that burden was not always a sign of weakness - it could also encourage her people to unite and give her guidance when her own was running low. If the Wraith had taught them nothing else, it was to band together and form one people, one alliance that nothing could break.

Still, when she closed her eyes at night, she saw the eyes of the people that she had loved and lost in the constant fight - the constant struggle to survive. Her own parents looked down on her in her dreams, offering what advice they could, and reminding her that amongst her peers she was special. She could stand up to the Wraith. She could endure the pain, and the suffering, and lead her people with a strength and conviction greater than that of the leaders of the past.

The eyes of the dead did not haunt her. Their images and lives inspired her own. For the memory of her lost people was what gave her the courage to continue the fight. To ensure that her people were never lost.

For once they were lost, then the heritage and the tradition of the Athosian people would be lost forever. And that was something she simply would not allow.


End file.
